The relationship between the emotional intelligence domains and driver behaviour in ESKOM: an adult education perspective

English: Emotions are one of the factors that define us as human yet, many people do not truly understand the extent to which our emotions are influenced by the external environment and how we allow emotions to control our behaviour which often translates into physiological and physical risk. The ability to recognise and manage our emotions is central to how we perceive and react to everyday life. Eskom as an organisation is totally committed to providing a safe environment for all their employees and no cost is spared in provided what they believe to be the best education and training to support their ZERO HARM philosophy. The question is however, with the unquestionable commitment to safety from management and staff alike; why is the vehicle incident rate (VIR) remaining at unacceptably high levels? This study was intended to identify the degree to which emotional intelligence, with specific reference to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and managing relationship's impact on driver specific attitude and behaviour. Emotional self-awareness allows individuals to start understanding how and why they react to specific external stimuli. Only once individuals recognise and acknowledge their emotions, will they be in a position to control how they react to these emotions. Understanding one's emotions is only the starting point in learning how to control your emotions but without this first step, no meaningful change will be possible. Emotional self-management is more of a process than a change in one's personality. It is the ability to accept one's shortcomings and manage the observable external responses to stimuli for the benefit of self and others. self-management is essentially a skill and as such, must be learned and practiced before it can be perfected Social awareness and managing relationships are possibly the more difficult emotional domains to master from a driver perspective, as it may be considered strange to think of social reactions with other road users as one's own responsibility. The social domains however, do have serious implications as to how these incidental relationships ultimately affect the behaviour of road users. It is clearly documented that road rage is common place in our driving culture. Analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data clearly indicates that emotional inelegance has a significant impact on driver behaviour. The participants in this study sited driver related emotional behaviour to include characteristics associated with road rage and general emotional incompetence. The quantitative data was less significant in determining the impact of emotional intelligence (El) and driver behaviour in regard to age, gender and race; the fact remains however that the data identified a significant relationship between persons with a low El and vehicle incidents. The analysis of the quantitative data relating to group, age, gender and race, when viewed against the same participant's qualitative response, as well as the theoretical arguments presented in this study, would suggest that the qualitative data may be influenced by response bias. The degree to which response bias may have contaminated the quantitative data will need to be established through further research. The recommendations in this study should be addressed in order to test the theories discussed in the study with the view of authenticating how customised education and training can positively impact on driver behaviour and how such education and training should be structured.